by Sarah Wilson |  November 14, 2018

In today’s digital age, the definition of “sport” is broader than ever before. Today, sports are no longer confined to real players battling it out on a pitch or court, but can include virtual players too. E-sports, which feature real players controlling digital ones, have become increasingly visible and popular over the last few years. Business has boomed, with global revenues up a whopping 38.2% since 2017.

In a nutshell, e-sport tournaments are multiplayer video games played competitively by professionals before a crowd of spectators. The games vary from tournament to tournament, with the most popular including League of Legends, Dota 2, and Counter-strike.

The explosion of e-sports has also been great news for publishers and news outlets, who have expanded their coverage to include the tournaments. This year, our German news agency customers DPA, along with Hamburger Morgenpost, used Live Blog to cover Europe’s biggest Dota 2 tournament: the ESLOne Hamburg.

The Challenge

In most cases, the audiences tuning in to e-sports coverage are young, tech-savvy millennials. So when DPA decided to team up with Hamburger Morgenpost to cover the 2018 e-sports tournament ESL One, it was this audience they had to consider first and foremost when strategizing their coverage. The primary challenge, therefore, was to find the right format for reaching and making an impact on the target audience.

DPA, Hamburger Morgenpost and Live Blog join forces for the ESLOne Hamburg

“The format had to be fast, containing and frequently updating multimedia content” – Malte Weber, DPA

The Solution

As so many e-sports fans follow coverage online, the decision for DPA and Hamburger Morgenpost to opt for live, online coverage was a no-brainer. And with its easy-to-use interface and array of useful tools, Live Blog was the software the team arrived at.

“Regarding the target group, the decision to go for some sort of live coverage was obvious. As Sourcefabric is in use at dpa-live, including customised adaptations and adjustments, the decision to opt for Sourcefabric was obvious… obvious because of its easy tools for integrating content on customer’s website; obvious because of how easily users can edit content – especially with regards to embedding multimedia content”.- Malte Weber, DPA

The live blog feed

The Results

The editors behind DPA and Hamburger Morgenpost’s ESLOne coverage began posting updates from 12pm on the very first day of the tournament, keeping their audience updated with regular text posts, images and videos detailing the movements of players and score counts. The coverage was published without a hitch, and the editors were highly satisfied with the final result.

“It was self-explanatory, easy to use and fast. Embedding tweets, posts, images and footage sent from our reporters in the arena was especially fast and easy, revealing no difficulties or hidden traps”. – Malte Weber

If you’d like to catch up on the coverage from DPA and Hamburger Morgenpost, you can find their completed live blog here.

What can Live Blog do for your next big event? Request a demo or get in touch with us to learn more: saas@liveblog.pro